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Limiting TV Time with Tokens

Do your children love to watch endless hours of TV or have trouble turning off the video game? Does it drive you crazy having to say “no” for the thousandth time each day?

Here is an idea for limiting your children’s television/computer/gaming time that has worked very well for my family. I have used this method for 8 years now and it still works great!

I made some “tokens” that we use to monitor how much time they spend playing with electronics.

Children love having the opportunity to make their own choices. I wasn’t sure how well it would work when we started. I assumed that it would force them to watch an hour of TV every day since they would never want to let their tokens go to waste.

Ironically, just the opposite happened. Okay, not for one of my kids, who lives for video games, but the others rarely use both tokens every day. There are some days when they just choose to play and totally forget about playing on electronics!

It is wonderful not to have to keep saying “no” when they ask to watch yet another video, show or play video or computer games. I just ask, “Do you have any tokens left?”

Here is how it works:

1. Every week I give my children a set of 14 tokens (you can download them below).

They receive 2 for each day of the week. I have found that 30 minute increments work very well since many kids’ videos and TV shows are 30 minutes. I do make some exceptions occasionally for feature length films (more on that later).

2. I purchased a plastic coin holder at a local toy/hobby store and taped some magnets on the back with clear packing tape.

We keep it on the fridge so the kids can check the status of their tokens at any time. The kids names are written above their tokens, but are smudged out in this picture for privacy. 🙂

3. Every Sunday, we fill up the slots with tokens (two in each slot).

Throughout the week, they are allowed to use their tokens at their own chosen time. But, they must follow a few rules:

When they want to use a token, they need to move it from the daily slot to the “used” slot.

They (or I) set a timer for 30 minutes (or 1 hour if using both tokens).

Since we homeschool, and I don’t want them racing through schoolwork to watch videos or turn on the Wii, they are not allowed to do anything electronic until 4:00 p.m. (aside from what is required with school). Saturdays, and Sundays after church, they are allowed to use their tokens at any time during the day as long as it doesn’t interfere with other plans.

Sometimes, all the children want to use their tokens at the same time for the same electronic. If that happens, they must agree on what they will watch or play and fairly decide who goes first. In that case, they may only use one of their 1/2 hour tokens at a time (not both).

In addition, sometimes, there is not enough time for everyone to use their tokens depending on our schedule. In that case, as in the previous point, they must agree, and share the time.

I do have to let you know there is a quirk that you will have to figure out with your own family.

In my home, tokens do not “roll over” to the next day. If a token isn’t used, it cannot be used on another day. You can tweak that rule however you wish, but I have found that they wanted to save four, five or six and have a “marathon” day. You could try letting them roll over two extra tokens for a maximum of two hours for a feature length film, if desired. Usually, what I do is just let them watch the longer video all together as long as it isn’t happening too frequently.

Bonus!

Occasionally, I will give them some “extra” tokens if I have a lot going on or they deserve a special reward for some reason.

Another thing I do is take the tokens away as a punishment. For a minor offense, often I will only take one token. For other offenses I will take two or more. Once in a while I have needed to take the entire week’s worth. Added benefit to this punishment: more time spent with their family. 😉

Click on the color token of your choice to download in PDF format. There are 18 tokens on each page: 2 for each day of the week with 4 extras.

***I had mine printed (by a printer) on card stock for extra sturdiness and bright colors.

Comments

Thanks for sharing this, Ginny! I really, REALLY like the fact that you gave suggestions for the “quirks”. That is what I usually struggle with when starting a new system. I love your suggestions, and it will take the guess-work out of implementing this method! 🙂

This is a fabulous idea! My children are older, so I’m not sure this will work for them, but I have many friends with younger children that will love this idea. I send this onto them. 🙂
Also, thank you for the comment on my blog! I love your ideas and the printouts are working so well for me.

You’re welcome, Heather! I hope they work for you! I just got done taking one away for a discipline issue. 😉 We’ve been using the idea for about 6 or 7 years, and it still works! We have gotten a bit lazy with moving the actual token into the “used” slot, but now that my kids are getting a little older, they know what it means to have two 30 minute “tokens” of time to use. Now, they just set the timer and know that when their time is gone, it’s gone. Best wishes! 🙂

Thank you for sharing your design! I plan on using the tokens with our summer reading program…my daughter needs to read for 30 minutes a day and I needed some “tokens” for her to earn. Love the screen time idea, though. Might have to implement that one too!

I printed off your blue and purple tokens today to use with my daughters. We always have a fight with our daughters about doing cleaning tasks and were looking for a way to do a reward system instead of disciplining them for not doing it. We tried it tonight and got them to do 3 items from their chore chart. Now I just have to hope the trend continues! Thank you so much for the great idea and great printable!

Hi! I love the token idea! We are currently in the process of starting some sort of ‘system’ for screen time, and this fits perfectly. So, I wonder how you deal with your kids watching TV or playing computer games over at a friends house. Do they use tokens for that too?

Good question, Julie. I’m generally pretty lenient when special occasions arise. My kids know how much time they are normally allowed, so I haven’t found it to be an issue. It’s a system that has worked well in our home. Most importantly, my kids have learned moderation, and I love that they have found joy in imaginative play as a result of the “electronic limitations”. 🙂

I LOVE this idea but have a snag that I don’t know how to handle. I have 3 kids (youngest still a baby) and the elder two are big TV watchers. I want to limit screen time, and I think tokens are a great system. Here’s my snag:

Our TV is located in the living room, which is basically our “family space.” It’s all one big room with the living area, kitchen, and dining area combined with no walls. It’s where we spend all of our time unless we’re sleeping.

So let’s say I had to take away the eldest child’s tokens and she gets no TV time. But the younger kid still wants to use hers to watch Dora the Explorer. What do I do with the elder child? Short of forcing her to spend that 30 minutes in her bedroom (neither practical nor fair, since there are minimum toys/books in there), I don’t know how to prevent her from “watching TV,” too. If my elder child is sitting at the kitchen table coloring or reading or cooking with me, she’s still going to be able to “watch TV.”

Great question, Carla! This is definitely something we have dealt with and tried different solutions over the years. Most of the time we allow the one using their token to choose and let the others watch if they want to. I realize that sounds like they watch TV all day, but I have found that many times, they aren’t interested in what the other one chose, so they don’t watch. I agree that it’s not fair to keep the others in another room. It can be done, but it takes a lot of effort and discipline on your part. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. You either don’t watch TV at all, limit everyone’s TV time as a whole, or set time limits individually (as in using tokens). The only way I could see it not working is if a family has a lot of children. Even if our kids watched everything the others put on, the total time would be 4 hours (because we have 4 kids). Yes, that is a LOT of screen time in my opinion, but that is the worst case scenario, and it rarely happens. If you think they will always watch what the others are watching, try giving them only one half hour token per day. Then the total time would probably still be way less than what it is now. I have seen (especially in my older children – 13 and 10 year olds) that they really enjoy being imaginative. They love to play and don’t even use their own tokens everyday.

We are fully implementing this starting on Sunday! I’m heading to the dollar store today for coin holders and new timers!
My fear is that the timer will be ignored (playing or watching after the buzzer goes off) or not set. Our 7yr old has a tendency to get “sucked in” to the computer, losing all touch with what is going on around him.

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